One-on-One with ThemeFuse Co-Founder Dimi Baitanciuc: Part 3

Get ready for an inside look at a day in the life of a ThemeFuse creator. This week, we continue our interview series with ThemeFuse Co-Founder Dimi Baitanciuc. Are the four owners still intricately involved and, if so, how much of a role do they play? The WordPress space is still competitive, so we also asked our interviewee to assess just how tough it is to survive in it.

WPHub: Talk about your role in the company right now. What do you do on a day-to-day and long-term basis?

Dimi Baitanciuc: That’s a tough question because as you probably know, the higher you are in a company pyramid, the less you do. So, we as co-founders don’t really do anything around here besides sitting pretty while drinking our coffee.

Joking aside, we still do the work we initially handled back in the day when there were just four of us, and that’s because we really love what we do. Some of us still design the themes, others develop the all-important WordPress framework that all of our themes are built upon. Basically, we try to do what we initially did, but it’s a lot harder now with the added responsibilities of business development, meeting partners, hiring personnel, handling interviews, and the like.

WPHub: How competitive is the WordPress space? We know there are plenty of companies in the market, but how cutthroat are most of them? Have you collaborated with other WordPress-related companies in the past?

Dimi Baitanciuc: I think the space is very decent and almost friendly. We haven’t collaborated with big companies, although we had the chance once, as we received an interesting proposition from one of the biggest names in the industry, but other than that, we have worked with freelance guys who try to make a name for themselves in this space, with mutual benefits.

The WordPress space right now is pretty competitive, I might say. There are lots of WordPress shops and developers popping up every day. With the help of marketplaces like Envato and Creative Market, it’s easy for a lot of these guys to get into the game. I’ll leave you with an Elbert Hubbard quote about competition: “Do your work with your whole heart and you will succeed – there’s so little competition.”

WPHub: Do you ever see WordPress use waning? Can another CMS overtake it?

Dimi Baitanciuc: It doesn’t seem like anything new is coming out right now and Joomla and Drupal seem to be at much higher risk than WordPress. This industry has come a long way and established itself as a household name that everybody thinks of when it comes to templates and themes. I would bet on Tumblr myself, but not to overtake WordPress. I just think there’s so much more space Tumblr can cover with its simplicity and straightforwardness.

WPHub: Talk about the importance of your developer community. What percentage of your customers are developers? How much do they influence the design and idea-generation processes at ThemeFuse?

Dimi Baitanciuc: I’d say between 15% and 20% of our users are developers and they come to us frequently to ask us to develop certain niche themes. We write all of this down on our To Do list and get to work, depending on the popularity of the request. We don’t do anything out of our hat; we have solid information from our users of what they need and what they want.
WPHub: What themes are you most proud of?

Dimi Baitanciuc: The two themes we are most proud of are HomeQuest and Voyage, as they are really complex. We worked for months when we first developed the backbone for their structure and functionalities, but it’s worth it, as very few WordPress themes out there can compare to them right now.

WPHub: Next week, we’ll wrap up out sit-down with ThemeFuse’s Dimi Baitanciuc by asking him what he does away from his job. We’re also happy to hear that other people’s friends and family don’t necessarily understand what they do for a living. As he put it, “Most of our friends and families are not tech-savvy and don’t fully understand what WordPress is or what we actually do.” Preach on.